Chapter 77
Chapter 77
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 77
Chapter Title: A Duel of Equals
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The jet-black tentacles coiled around his heart, belonging to *The Book of the Black Goat*, began to rampage as if in a frenzy.
“……!”
They broke free from Dale's control, running wild, greedily devouring the black magic originating from the source of blackness, and with that power—.
—Dog of Sistina, I will never forgive you...!
Dog of Sistina.
“……!”
With unspeakable hatred, Shub uttered the ‘goddess's name’.
The Sistina Sister Goddesses. He had thought they were nothing more than fictional deities created by the people of this world.
*‘They're not just fabrications...?’*
Calling the name of the goddess who should have been just that, Shub lifted the hem of her dress.
*Shwaaaa!*
From beneath it, writhing jet-black tentacles erupted all at once. Dale had no reason to hesitate either. Ignoring the heart and circles that were screaming as if about to burst, he accelerated again and again through overclocking.
The Death Knights of the Black Sword kicked off the ground and charged in unison.
Towards the ‘Holy Maiden,’ who was wrapped in six wings made of light.
A golden seraph.
The true form of Holy Maiden Orelia's avatar.
Just as the ideological world built by a mage represents their very psyche, the ideals Orelia now projected onto her sword, armor, and body were her heart itself.
The Goddess's executioner. An apostle of fanaticism.
*‘This is dangerous.’*
Dale could sense it instinctively. The situation was far from favorable.
It was a ‘wall’ that Dale was feeling for the first time.
This was different from when he had glimpsed the power of Lord Black. He was Dale's father, and surpassing him was a goal for some distant, uncertain future.
But now, the presence of the Holy Maiden before him. Even if this was a ‘mock duel,’ she was a formidable enemy whose momentary lapse in concentration could cost him his life.
No, the killing intent she radiated in the face of Dale's provocation was already beyond that of a mock duel.
*‘Should I surrender and end the duel now?’*
Dale thought for a moment. His ‘true objective’ was never to defeat the Holy Maiden here. Even if victory was the best outcome, he had a secondary plan prepared for defeat. In fact, that had been the original plan.
*‘...No.’*
But what filled Dale's heart, pushed to the brink, was a competitive spirit.
This wasn't a staged battle with a predetermined script. The opponent before him was no mere sacrificial lamb meant to showcase and prove his talent.
This was a chance to clash with his full power against that ‘extraordinary powerhouse’.
Right now, Dale stood on the boundary between life and death. On a tightrope where a single misstep could send him plummeting into the abyss, losing everything.
*‘Yes, this is how it should be.’*
On that very tightrope, Dale smiled coldly.
His shadow cloak fluttering, leaving behind Shub, who made no effort to hide her malice. Leading the ‘Death Knights of the Black Sword’ that filled the empty horizon.
Spreading her six wings, the Holy Maiden charged. Dale, too, generated ‘blades of darkness’ from the shadows of his cloak.
*Clang!*
A single sword strike clashed.
Orelia's golden sword against Dale's blade of darkness. By moving twelve ‘shadow blades’ in unison, he barely managed to deflect it.
That was all he could do. As a swordsman, he was no match for her.
But as his swordsmanship master, Lord Helmut, had once said... just withstanding a single clash was enough.
For a mage who had given a knight close quarters to regroup.
Immediately after, the black swords of the Death Knights swarmed in from all directions. Furthermore, a barrage of tentacles from ‘Shub’ and the Shadow Lurkers rained down, covering Dale.
The Holy Maiden had no room to launch her next attack. She simply used her six wings to spin like a swallow and create distance. As the Holy Maiden retreated, the jet-black tentacles endlessly slammed down after her.
The jet-black tentacles endlessly spewing and swirling from beneath Shub's dress.
Each time, his magic was depleted amidst a pain like his heart was being squeezed, and to generate enough magic to endure it again, he accelerated his three circles over and over.
His consciousness blurred in the pain. But he could understand.
Right now, *The Book of the Black Goat* was not running rampant. It was merely a harsh whipping.
To guide him to the realm beyond the three circles coiled around his heart.
The Fourth Circle.
The jet-black tentacles coiled even tighter around the three accelerating circles.
Dale's Third Circle was by no means that of an ordinary Third-Circle mage. In terms of the ‘absolute amount of magic’ he purely generated, it would rival that of a Sixth-Circle mage.
Yet even Dale's circles, generating such a large amount of high-density magic, couldn't properly draw out the power of *The Book of the Black Goat*.
—Not enough, not enough not enough not enough, it's nowhere near enough!
Even the amount of magic generated by the great Dale could not quench Shub's thirst. That was why it was trying to force open the ‘next stage’.
“Alright, let's see this through to the end.”
For Dale, this was an outcome he couldn't have wished for more.
The Fourth Circle. For a mage, a realm ‘beyond that of a respectable practitioner’. He contemplated the hidden vistas of magic he would see upon obtaining that realm.
Just like the current Dale, it would surely not end at the level of an ‘ordinary Fourth Circle’.
Therefore, Dale did not hesitate.
To overcome the two walls before him: Holy Maiden Orelia and the wall of the Fourth Circle.
“《Radiant Singularity》.”
It was then. Orelia spread her six wings wide.
The wings of light began to amplify their glow, as if they were the sun itself. A light so intense it could incinerate even the biting cold and darkness raging in Dale's world.
Like a harbinger of dawn illuminating the twilight.
He understood the meaning of that light the moment he saw it.
*‘Light amplification by stimulated emission of electromagnetic waves.’*
—A laser.
*‘……!’*
Instantly, Dale kicked off the ground and surged forward.
From her six wings, lasers were being fired like a barrage in all directions.
Death Ray. A focused barrage.
Pillars of light, like something out of a science fiction movie, were destroying Dale's world.
He couldn't even laugh at the sight. An overwhelming power that made even Dale's Death Knights, possessing the martial prowess of heroes, feel like mere grunts. What meaning could strategy or tactics possibly have in the face of that?
None.
Even the jet-black tentacles raging towards her, even the black blood scattered as they were annihilated, couldn't reach the baptism of light pouring from the Holy Maiden.
That is an extraordinary powerhouse.
Overwhelming destructive power capable of overturning the entire battlefield with individual strength. One who makes the very ‘chivalric romances’ that people of this world would laugh off as absurd, possible.
This is it. This is the reality of the powerful foes he had defeated countless times in his past life, and those he must defeat again.
*‘It's still not enough.’*
Therefore, at his current level, he could not reach that being.
The convergence of light raging from all sides was unleashing an indiscriminate bombardment. It was truly like facing a science fiction weapon with a sword in hand.
He had to reach it.
While ‘Shub's’ tentacles desperately acted as a meat shield against the light of annihilation to protect him, and before his own rapidly depleting circles ceased to function altogether.
*‘How?’*
A laser is light, and a mirror has the property of reflecting light.
Refraction of light. But there was no way a mere mirror could block such a high-output laser.
Just then, something flashed through Dale's mind.
*‘LDAL.’*
Laser Developed Atmospheric Lens system.
A weapon to defend against high-output lasers was not just a concept of imagination. An optical weapon that countered laser weaponry by forming a layer of hot air to induce light refraction.
*‘It's worth a try.’*
Something Dale knew, and the Holy Maiden did not. Knowledge from another world.
For Dale, who used black and blue magic, creating flames like the mages of the Red Tower was impossible.
But there was no need to burn a blazing fire. Heat, after all, is merely an indicator of the ‘intensity of molecular motion’.
Just as cold represents the ‘absence of molecular motion,’ heat and cold are ultimately two sides of the same coin.
Dale stopped moving. The light raging from the Holy Maiden's wings was aimed at the stationary target.
The light of annihilation targeted Dale, and Dale, in turn, focused his consciousness without so much as a twitch.
He grasped the flow of the area, scattered his magic, and watched the Holy Maiden's wings of light.
Nothing in this world can be faster than light. But it is possible to predict the movement before the trigger is pulled.
The wings of light once again brilliantly amplified their glow, and…….
*‘Now.’*
Dale projected a mechanism born from the firm knowledge of another world.
“—Light, refract.”
An otherworldly incantation to solidify that mental image. He accelerated the molecular motion in the area surrounding him, heating the layer of air to construct a ‘shield of light’ that would induce the refraction of the high-output laser.
Towards that very shield of light, the light of annihilation slammed down.
“……!”
Spear and shield.
The light of annihilation, fired as a focused barrage, was deflected. Ricocheting, it shot back towards the Holy Maiden's wings—.
It was at that moment.
*Crack!*
There was the sound of something shattering.
The movement of the circles accelerating around his heart stopped. The pain in his heart, which had been screaming as if about to burst, ceased.
Shub's form vanished, and the winter night landscape surrounding the two also disappeared.
Dale found himself back on the drawbridge of Lance.
His heart's circles had ceased to function after being overloaded.
*‘To think I would be defeated here...’*
With a desperate move just ahead, his energy had run out. Failing to reach the wall right before him, the realm of the Fourth Circle. What a truly laughable conclusion. Smiling bitterly, Dale raised his head.
An angel with six wings was there.
“……!”
Tattered, perforated wings. Golden armor, shattered to pieces, revealing the flesh beneath. A truly wretched, wounded figure.
That very Holy Maiden was kneeling before Dale.
—Dale's counterattack had succeeded.
*‘……!’*
But the wounded Holy Maiden staggered to her feet. As if wringing out the very last of her strength.
She had not fallen.
In front of everyone, Orelia walked towards Dale, who had exhausted all the power of his circles and had no strength left to resist. The tip of a simple soldier's sword was leveled at him.
“It seems there is no meaning in fighting any further.”
the Holy Maiden said. At the absurd conclusion, Dale gave a bitter smile.
“It is my defeat.”
“That is not so.”
The Holy Maiden, her blade still leveled, calmly shook her head. After shaking her head, she knelt before Dale.
Plunging her sword vertically into the ground before her.
“This match is a draw.”
the Holy Maiden said. A draw.
“That can't be……”
Dale had already exhausted his energy to the point where he couldn't lift a finger. In contrast, though she had suffered a fatal counterattack, the Holy Maiden's ‘avatar’ had not yet vanished. She was still in a condition to continue the fight.
Holy Maiden Orelia surely knew this as well.
“I express my reverence for your Lordship's martial prowess.”
Despite this, the Holy Maiden was kneeling before Dale, showing him a knight's courtesy.
“The tales of the gossips were not false.”
“The tales of the gossips were not false.”
At the same time, the same words flowed from both their lips.
Dale smiled quietly. The Holy Maiden smiled as well.
“I, Dale of Sachsen.”
Immediately after, Dale raised his voice and shouted.
“As promised, I shall offer this city of Lance, the capital of the Kingdom of Britannia.”
Dale's voice, amplified by magic squeezed from his last reserves of power, echoed resoundingly.
A voice loud enough for the people of the city and all the independence army soldiers watching their duel to hear.
“I swear to offer it before the Sistina Sister Goddesses and the Lady Holy Maiden Orelia.”
Uttering the name of the ‘Holy Maiden Orelia,’ and not Charles VII, the legitimate heir to the Kingdom of Britannia.